A starter policy template

Use three tiers:

  • Tier A: OSS routine
  • Tier B: mid-tier
  • Tier C: frontier

Then map tasks: summarization, extraction, classification, and formatting to Tier A; bounded reasoning and tool selection to Tier B; high complexity and sensitive tasks to Tier C.

Escalation triggers (practical)

Escalate when:

  • confidence is low
  • context length exceeds threshold
  • sensitive category is detected
  • evaluation fails
  • repeated retries occur

Thresholds: be conservative first

Start conservative, then tighten:

  • allow more escalation early
  • measure quality
  • reduce escalation as you gain confidence

Governance controls you need

  • RBAC for policy changes
  • per-agent allowlists
  • audit logs per request
  • workload tags for cost review

If you are running agents in production

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Rollout plan

  • Pick one workflow.
  • Route it down with conservative escalation.
  • Compare quality and cost.
  • Expand.

Where ViaLayer AI helps

ViaLayer AI provides routing infrastructure for agent workloads with policies, governance, and audit logs, so you can cut spend without breaking quality.

Join waitlist to get a suggested routing policy for your workload mix.

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